


Ink of the Black Divine

by Akaiba



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Improper Tattooing of Drunk Men, M/M, Tattoo AU, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-26
Updated: 2015-04-26
Packaged: 2018-03-25 21:30:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3825742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Akaiba/pseuds/Akaiba
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Maker save me from you Southern chantry boys." Dorian shakes his head, rolling his eyes and not seeming like he minds being oggled all that much. </p><p>"You believe in the Maker?" Cullen asks softly, stunned at the idea. He knew there was still a chantry further north, but the idea of them worshipping the same Maker Cullen does is difficult to grasp.</p><p>"Don't you?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ink of the Black Divine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [elmroko](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elmroko/gifts).



> for elmroko

Trevelyan had always enjoyed Cullen being drunk. The man took a lot of liquor to get him there, but when he was it was spectacular. He was loud, unhibited with his words that faltered other times, snorting amusement at the most borish of jokes for all to hear, slinging an arm around Trevelyan's shoulder and announcing enthusiastically- if slurred- that Trevelyan is his closest friend. There's a heavy pause and Trevelyan is waiting for Cullen to throw up or keep going. 

He keeps going. 

"We should get tattoos!" Comes the slurred declaration, as though it were the greatest and most profound idea ever imparted. "Friendship tattoos!"

"Most people just get bracelets." Trevelyan sniggers into his pint, choosing to ignore the way gravity seemed determined to pull him off one side of his stool. "Less permanent." 

"I want permanent." Cullen insists, hand slamming flat to the bar top but barely a dent in the din of the crowd around them. "We're friends for life!" When Trevelyan giggles and hiccups, Cullen grabs his shoulder tightly. "Friends for life!" He repeats, more fiercely determined, and Trevelyan nods in agreement. 

"Friends for life." He pats Cullens hair, saddened it was so styled down it didn't have the usual curled bounce that he had been fond of in their younger years. 

Cullen nods, as solemnly as a drunk man can which ends up more movement than is strictly necessary- and Trevelyan might not be as drunk, but he appreciates that Cullen is wasted and trying to be serious. "You have so many... always wondered. Made me want one..." 

Trevelyan sniggers. "Do they let tattooed people into the chantry to pray? What would the Maker say?" 

Cullen's face scrunches up. His faith has always been important to him, but Trevelyan couldn't find the whole thing more ridiculous. His teasing is affectionate though, and half serious. He's always been wary of the Sisters and Mothers who Cullen finds such comfort in going to for prayer. "Course they will... s'just ink. I think m... Mother... Mother Giselle has one..."

"I did not need to know that." Trevelyan lifts his pint, throwing it back and draining the dregs of it with a satisfied groan. "Come on, then."

"Hm?"

"You wanna get tattoos? I know a guy." Trevelyan stands from his bar stool. It’s more a slide from his seat with the hope that when his feet touch the floor they will hold him, which they luckily do with only a few wobbles. 

"Thought you couldn't... couldn't get tattooed drunk?" 

Trevelyan shrugs. "People gotta train up. Like I said, I know a guy." Getting Cullen down from his stool is a group effort, the pair waving to Varric in the back of the bar with his usual table of friends gambling away their coin. They cheer at Cullen's staggering, Hawke calling out lewd suggestions as Trevelyan flips him off and they make it out into the cold night air. 

It's sobering enough that Cullen manages to stand upright without Trevelyan's arm around his waist. He doesn't look actually sober, but he grins brightly at Trevelyan when they start walking and discuss what the tattoo might be. 

"I was thinking... got my regiment tattooed on me, right? But you and me... we been friends since before the army, yeah?" Trevelyan shrugs. "Sure it was in basic but... you know... we're more than that, right?" Trevelyan gesticulates enthusiastically, Cullen listening earnestly and nodding along in agreement. "You remember what the called us, back in basic? Not the boys in basic too, our friends back home."

Cullen's brow furrowed in concentration, looking at his shuffling feet on the concrete as he thought. "The... the Inquisition?"

Trevelyan claps his hands and wobbles wildly for a moment. "Yeah! Lets get that tattooed on us!"

"The... the word?" Cullen struggles.

"No! Remember the symbol Solas showed us? Was about... like, where the whole Inquisition thing came from."

"Cass just said it was because you were a nosy bastard and I was always helping you."

Trevelyan shrugged off the accusation of his meddling. "Solas said... something wise or some shit. Words have power, memories lingerin', I dunno, I wasn't really listening. The symbol was badass though..."

Cullen nods slowly, like the movement of his head while also considering Trevelyan's words takes far more effort to coordinate than he is capable of. "O-okay..." He nods a little more firmly and reaches out to grasp Trevelyan's forearm. "Lets see your guy. Wanna see the... thingy. Then we can... you know."

"Yeah." Trevelyan happily falls into step beside Cullen, reminiscing with the accuracy the alcohol in them will allow them to as Trevelyan heads them in the vague direction he remembers Ink of the Black Divine being. 

When they find it, Cullen stares up at the sign with wide eyes. "This is... Vint, right?"

Trevelyan rolls his eyes. "So? I get inked here aaaaaaall the time." He draws out the word as if it increases his authority on the matter. Tevinter was legendary, but a clearly Tevinter establishment this far south and so open about it must mean it was fine or it wouldn’t still be here.

Cullen nods slowly, taking that as word he won't die the moment he enters, but Trevelyan can see him twitching as he enters the doorway like he wants to drop to his knees and ask Andraste to protect him. Trevelyan tries not to laugh as he bangs obnoxiously on the bell at the desk.

"What's a tattoo place open so late for?" Cullen stage whispers to Trevelyan, Trevelyan's reply cut off by the jingling of the beaded curtain from the back as someone steps through..

"To tattoo all the lovely drunks who decide to dare enter my den of infidelity and heresy, of course. How else would I get any work? You think the Maker-fearing southerners are lining up to let a ‘Vint’ near them with a sharp object?"

“Dorian!” Trevelyan cries, then pouts, leaning his full weight over the counter. "I come to you sober all the time!"

 

The front of the parlour, where there are chairs, a front desk and breath taking art on every wall, is dimly lit. The man, who Trevelyan greeted so warmly as ‘Dorian’, is framed in the glittering beads of the door curtain, his dark gaze sharp in the low light as he faces the two men in the front of his shop with a curious air. Trevelyan pays no mind to the sharp assessing look Cullen is given, instead making a whining noise to draw Dorian’s attention.

Dorian gives a painfully false, simpering smile that Trevelyan returns with obviously ignoring approval. "Yes, you do. And you whimper and cry and plead for mercy. You scare off anyone else who dares." Dorian's eyes drift over to Cullen with a disinterested air. His gaze lingers, however, and even drunk Cullen suspects Dorian's not as unimpressed as he pretends. "What can my charming self do for you wonderfully inebriated men?"

"Charming?" Trevelyan snorts. 

"I find it best to make my better qualities clear to new people, as a favour." Dorian's smile to Cullen is as charming as he promised- and more than a little predatory. Challenging Cullen to shuffle away from it. 

“How d’you know we’re drunk?”

Dorian sniffs disdainfully. “You reek like you tried to pickle yourselves.”

“Point.” Trevelyan waves wildly like he doesn’t care.

"Want a tattoo." Cullen slurs. It isn't until he hears his own voice that he remembers how drunk he is, and standing in a Tevene decorated tattoo parlour asking a Tevinter to stab him full of ink, he realises perhaps he has made a mistake. Looking at Trevelyan, however, the man couldn't be more at ease. He's rocking back on his heels and playing his fingers over the counter top in a strange pattern only he knows. 

"Really now? Both of you?" His gaze goes to Cullen again.

"We're getting friendship tattoos!" Trevelyan says with a delighted grin. 

Dorian snorts and shakes his head as Cullen glares at the man, ready to defend the idea until he is blue in the face. "Of course you are." Dorian says it like its the funniest thing he's heard all week, but Cullen doesn't need to defend the idea as Dorian just waves them through into the back room. 

It's more brightly lit back here and Cullen's first proper look at Dorian is of his back. The shirt he wears- if it can be called that- has one sleeve cut to his elbow and the other bared to his collar, and cut at his belly to show off all of his decoration. Dorian himself has two full sleeves of ink down both arms from what Cullen can see. They disappear under the black shirt and Cullen's curious as to if there are more. They're sparser over his hips and ribs, peeking out from under the material, but his toned belly is mostly bare. There are hints of more tattoos under his jeans, the tips of the ink peeking out at the waistband under the dimples of his back and at the V of his hips. It isn't until Dorian snaps his fingers in front of Cullen that he realises he's been staring. Rather blatantly. 

"Maker save me from you Southern chantry boys." Dorian shakes his head, rolling his eyes and not seeming like he minds being oggled all that much. 

"You believe in the Maker?" Cullen asks softly, stunned at the idea. He knew there was still a chantry further north, but the idea of them worshipping the same Maker Cullen does is difficult to grasp.

"Don't you?"

"Y-yes, o-of course." 

Trevelyan pushes between them with a groan as he stalks to the terrifyingly clinical looking chair. "No Maker talking. S'boring! Ink me!" 

Dorian's eyes haven't moved from Cullen, and they slowly drag down Cullen's face before he turns to Trevelyan making a shambles of climbing into the chair. "Are you sure you should go first? I do believe it might scare the good Commander off if he sees the state you get into."

"H-how did..." 

Dorian's eyes on him again feel weighted. Cullen feels them like a physical touch; assessing, thoughtful- considering. "This darling idiot babbles so delightfully when he's at my tender ministrations." He steps purposefully over to Trevelyan who is already squirming in the tattoo chair. "He tells me all about his friends, his life, anything to pretend I'm not sticking him full of needles." The faux sympathy has Trevelyan scowling and Cullen chuckling. 

"You make it hurt, I know you do." 

"Now why would I do that? All that gets me is pretty, arrogant men squirming under me. Hm. Now there is a thought..." Dorian trails off but it's intentional as his gaze finds Cullen again and Cullen swallows hard at the images in his head. "Now. What is it you want me to do?" 

It takes Trevelyan a full three minutes to unlock his phone and clumsily search the web for the right image. Even drunk he's still very certain what he wants, it's something Cullen has always admired. He tends to get pulled along in the wake of it, the tide of Trevelyan's charisma just sucking him in, whereas outside of combat and commanding his men, Cullen doesn't know what he wants for dinner let alone permanently tattooed on his skin. Trevelyan chose that too. 

The stenciling is straightforward, not a laborious process like Cullen had thought. Placing it is the hard part. Trevelyan is a sketchbook of seemingly randomly placed tattoos and he's insistent this one needs a special place.

"Plenty of space on your delectable rear." Dorian helpfully points out.

"You are not getting me naked that easy." As if he hasn’t got his jeans off and is patting his bared thighs happily.

"'Easy', he says..." Dorian is snapping on rubber gloves and selecting the ink as Trevelyan eyes the stencil on his newly shaved thigh. 

Trevelyan squirms and begs and whines just as Dorian had said he usually did, but for the most part he is at least still enough for Dorian to work. Curiosity has Cullen drawing closer, watching as Dorian weaves the ink like magic. Black spills out and Dorian wipes it clear, revealing lines that won't wipe away. 

It seems to take forever but Cullen never tires of watching Dorian work. Cullen is certain almost an hour passes and then that mischievous, heavy gaze is on him again. 

"Your turn, Commander." The wink is unnecessary and it turns Cullen so warm he might tip over. 

There's muffled talk of adding colour later, when they're both sober, and that the outline is for free if they promise to come back. 

When Cullen steps forward as Trevelyan slides from the chair, Dorian eyes the stencil he has ready before screwing it up with a disdainful sniff. Cullen frowns but Dorian is already smiling and firmly suggesting a different design. He’s much too drunk to do more than watch as Dorian and Trevelyan bicker at the computer, easing back into the comfortable chair and letting his eyes droop until Trevelyan barks at him excitedly. When Cullen sees the design he lights up with his own excitement. 

A lion, with a golden red and orange mane, teeth bared and roaring wide sits on the computer. The same symbol as Trevelyan’s is there, just past the lion’s face and only partially overlapped as if… as if protecting it. Cullen looks up at Dorian, wondering how the man just pulled that out of nowhere. They’ve never met and Trevelyan can only have spoken so much about him. Dorian is smugly regarding Cullen’s pleased expression with satisfaction but even Cullen can see the relief. 

Eager fingers pull at the buttons on his shirt and Cullen flushes red as Trevelyan sniggers where he is slumped in the waiting chair. 

"D-Dorian?" Cullen murmurs.

Dorian hums, something that isn't an answer but more an appreciation of Cullen saying his name. "The shirt has to come off. I can't tattoo you through it." Cullen does not remember deciding the tattoo would go on his chest but he can’t say it’s a bad idea- every part of this is a bad idea, even drunk he knows this, he just doesn’t care enough to stop it.

Cullen’s suddenly aware of how drunk he still is and how warm the idea of Dorian’s hands on his skin is making him. He stammers and avoids Dorian’s smirking gaze, but he does not fight as Dorian unbuttons his way down Cullen’s chest. Cullen’s fairly sure Dorian’s index fingers don’t need to press against his skin and trace their way down him like that however his brain offers very little in the way of gibbering protesting as Dorian’s fingers bump down the ridges of his belly and Dorian’s breath huffs out falteringly. Cullen can feel it against his mouth and he wonders when they got so close.

“My, my, and look what the Commander was hiding under that horrid shirt…” Dorian’s eyeing him in a way that Cullen would describe as hungry and Cullen lacks even a fraction of the mental ability necessary to handle that- and that has very little to do with his being drunk. 

Trevelyan sniggers, and Cullen notices him slumped over in his chair and half asleep. “Cullen can bench press people.” He slurs, and it is his last coherent comment before he snorts and curls tighter into the chair. 

“Can he now?” Dorian purrs. When Cullen stares at him wide eyed and his mouth fails to articulate a response, Dorian chuckles. “Relax, Commander, I am only prepared to take advantage of drunk people in one way, so lets see about my making a permanent mark on that body of yours, hm?”

“Cullen.”

“Yes?”

“My name. It’s Cullen. You could use it, if you want.” Cullen leans back into the chair as Dorian sets about changing the gun and cleaning it. It’s strange that Cullen feels comfortable enough not to watch Dorian warily, that even with his inhibitions lowered his instincts aren’t twitching at the Tevinter man poised over him with a needle. He’d like to think it’s seeing Trevelyan comfortable enough to sleep in Dorian’s presence but it isn’t. Dorian feels safe. Dorian feels… bitter, guarded, tired. But not a threat. 

Cullen’s eyes drift half closed as Dorian presses the stencil to his skin and smoothes out the transfer, letting Cullen hum his approval before fussing with it himself as Cullen’s too drunk and comfortable to care much. He’s vaguely aware this will be on him forever but he’s more interested in watching Dorian’s bare belly twist and and turn as he moves. Really, it’s indecent how underdressed Dorian is but it’s probably more indecent how much Cullen is enjoying the view with his hooded eyes.

He’d have fallen asleep if the tattoo gun didn’t feel like being cut. His eyes open and his brow furrows, eyeing the press of the gun to his skin with a huffed sort of annoyance. Cullen knows pain, knows pain so deep and consuming he thinks his entire body is aflame with it. 

This just stings in comparison, but he still frowns. “That hurts.”

Dorian pulls the gun away as he snorts in amusement, shaking his head and going back to his task. “It would hurt more if you weren’t so drunk. So lets be thankful for that.” 

“I thought… thought you liked men squirming under you.” Cullen knows he’s blushing, but he’s feeling brave with the edge of pain enough to keep his fogged mind focused to hold a conversation.

“Only the pretty ones.” Dorian’s eyes flick up to his and Cullen shivers when Dorian’s free hand, gloved in rubber but still so warm, thumbs over his chest. “And you are that.” 

Cullen can offer nothing coherent after that, lost in staring at Dorian and barely reacting as the man tattoos him with sharp focus. There’s a vague memory of Dorian calling them a cab, of Cullen catching his arm and Dorian pushing him away with a laugh, hollow and amused. 

“Always that pretty ones.” And Cullen wants to say something, but Trevelyan cannot stand up, half asleep and muttering as Cullen lifts him and they stagger to the cab. 

He does not remember getting Trevelyan home, or getting himself home. 

He wakes up with the light stabbing his eyes, his head pounding from the agony of the waking world and curling onto his front into the bedding. He winces when his chest rubs against the sheets, scrambling upright at the pain and staring down at himself with slitted, bloodshot eyes. 

There’s a panel of plastic wrap taped to his chest. Under it, a sore web of black lines that when he peels the odd bandage away reveals the outline of a snarling lion and a symbol that looks oddly familiar. His mind races, aching with the desperation he urges himself to remember what on earth happened last night.

Cullen’s fingers trace the sore skin and his breathing picks up. 

He remembers Trevelyan. He remembers them drinking and remembering the good times, blocking out the horrors of another military tour with alcohol and camaraderie. He had wanted to remember that for ever. He had wanted…

Cullen’s trying very hard not to hyperventilate as he looks down at his chest again.

It’s a tattoo.

He has a tattoo.

There is a tattoo on his chest.

He rubs more firmly at the skin, wincing as it burns and he draws his hand away. Definitely a tattoo. 

“Trevelyan…” He hisses under his breath as he staggers from his bed and into the bathroom. Cullen can’t remember much but he just knows this is Trevelyan’s fault even if he’s fairly certain it was himself that demanded a tattoo. He’s still blaming this one on Trevelyan.

The mirror in the bathroom reveals more and does not help his rising panic and incredulity. The lion is very well done, the spaces for detail and colour left that Cullen recognises from having seen Trevelyan get his done in stages. 

Staring at it doesn’t make it less real, nor does avoiding looking at it. 

Cullen traces his fingers over the reddened skin. It looks pretty good, actually. Cullen finds himself less horrified the more he looks at it. It’s fierce and realistic, artistic and more than a little cool. It takes him a while to notice what is under the lion and the symbol. His brain is still struggling to recognise the ink on his skin let alone what seems to be a phone number. It isn’t his, it isn’t Trevelyan’s- it isn’t a number he recognises at all. 

He remembers a flash of brown eyes, dark and intense, the glint of a tattoo gun and an edge of pain that feels not enough of a deterrent. Cullen’s fingers trace the number and it doesn’t rub away. “M-Maker’s breath…” He chokes, staggering back into his bedroom to scramble around for his phone. His fingers shake as he dials the number, reasonably certain who’s number it might be as he retypes it five times until his shock allows him to dial it correctly.

“Ink of the Black Divine, how can I-”

“You tattooed your phone number on me?!” Cullen shrieks, far more shrill than he intended. There’s a pause, and then laughter. “This is not funny!”

“Oh, Commander, it really is.” Dorian’s laugh is a purr of amusement and Cullen would find it pleasing if it didn’t make him want to ring the smug man’s neck.

“How could you-” He had thought his voice couldn’t get higher in his hysterics but he was wrong as he flustered, pacing around his bedroom. 

Dorian takes pity on his babbling. “It’s permanent marker, Commander.”

“It-... oh.” Cullen looks down at his chest, fingers tracing the skin. “Really?”

“Yes, really.” 

Cullen sinks down to his bed, falling back onto it with relief as his pounding headache reasserts itself as a problem. “Maker’s breath.” He rubs at his brow and sighs.

“How quaint.” Dorian remarks, and Cullen wants to laugh but there’s a tattoo of a lion on his chest and he hurts everywhere. “I am assuming you took the wrap off I gave you?”

Cullen looks at his bare chest. “It felt weird.”

Dorian tsks and Cullen is amused even as he hears Dorian inhale for the scolding. “Is it really too much to ask for a drunk man to hold on to one piece of information?” Cullen opens his mouth. “Don’t even think of answering that. Check your back pocket- there is a piece of paper with proper care instructions and there should be some cream for it too.”

Cullen very distinctly remembers, as he was manhandling Trevelyan into the cab, a far too daring hand slipping into his back pocket and squeezing his rear. When he rolls over and reaches his jeans on the floor, he finds the promised items. 

“So, when can I book you in to finish that tattoo?” Cullen doesn’t think he is imagining the hopeful edge to that question.

As fogged as his scattered memories of last night are, there is a very crystal clear one of Dorian leaning over him and Cullen desperately wanting to kiss him. He hadn’t had the motor skills for it, or even the mental capacity to really understand the want, but it had been there and in the light of day its more startling. 

“C-coffee?” Cullen stammers.

“I’m sorry?”

“Y-you c-could, I mean w-we. Us. Over coffee? We could… d-discuss it?”

“Discuss your tattoo appointment? Over coffee?” Dorian sounds confused and Cullen drags his fingers through his hair. 

“Maker, let me start over… um.” The words catch in his throat and he can’t even garble them out. 

Dorian huffs a soft laugh, “Why, Commander, are you asking me out for coffee?” The teasing disbelief in Dorian’s voice, like it’s the last thing he actually thinks Cullen means, spurs Cullen on to speak.

Cullen breathes a sigh of relief. “Yes! I am. Or I was trying to. And… you can still call me Cullen.”

“Cullen it is then.” Dorian sounds stunned.

Cullen moves a hand to his sore skin, idly going to scratch but catching himself at the last second and letting his fingers trace the edge of the reddened skin. “So… um, is that a yes?”

Dorian laughs again, and Cullen is definitely a fan when it isn’t at his expense. “Meet me at the studio at 1, there’s a place I usually go for lunch that you might like. Very… quaint.”

“Good, that’s good, right?” Cullen isn’t sure if he’s being teased or even if he minds.

“Very. Take care of my art, Cullen. See you at lunch.”

“See you... Dorian.” 

Cullen lingers over the name and he hears Dorian falter before muttering, "Maker save me from you Southern chantry boys." And he hangs up primly with a click.

Cullen drops his phone to the bed, and it isn’t until he’s in the bathroom again tending to his tattoo that he realises he hasn’t stopped smiling.

**Author's Note:**

> my tumblr: akaiba.tumblr.com


End file.
